Feb
19
2015
Personal development review: our top tips for a meaningful meeting
By Sally Pearman.
If done well, a review meeting can really inspire your staff and drive performance within your organisation. Done badly, you can end up wishing you hadn’t bothered.
Whether you call them Personal Development Reviews (PDR), Appraisals, Contribution Reviews or annual ‘check-ins’ the Centre has pulled together our top tips to ensure you get the most out of the meeting.
This isn’t ‘Surprise Surprise’, it’s a summary of the year
I might be showing my age here but this is not an occasion for Cilla Black. This meeting will summarise issues, successes and challenges that will have already been discussed in your one-to-one meetings. So there won’t be any shocks, surprises or curve balls. This might sound simple, obvious even, but if this is your first formal review you can easily start imagining worst case scenarios. Or even if it’s your 20th, there’s no harm in reassuring your staff. As a rule, I always remind my team of this a few months in advance of the review to really drive this message home. Anxiety does not aid productivity so just let everyone know how the meeting works in advance.
Refer back to one-to-one notes for the period being covered
Whether they are saved online, or in a locked cabinet, get out the one-to-one notes for the period being reviewed and take some time to look through them. Diarise it, get away from your desk if you need to, but there’s no point organising the PDR if you haven’t reviewed the notes.
It’s all too easy to let historic issues bleed into the period being covered. It’s also very easy to focus on a few ‘spotlight’ events (good, bad or ugly!) and lose sense of the bigger picture. You may notice trends or patterns which you simply wouldn’t see without taking the time and space to properly prepare. And I’ve always had a lot of respect for my managers who have thoroughly prepared for our reviews – it shows you’re valued.
Take your time
Think about the impact you’re making on your appraisee when you schedule the PDR. If it’s rushed and shambolic that will leave a lasting impression – and not the kind you want to make! Think about the environment, whether they prefer morning or afternoon meetings, whether you’ll have privacy to talk openly, will you have enough time? If someone has just come back from two weeks in Croatia don’t schedule the meeting for their first day back. If one of you has care responsibilities don’t schedule the meeting for 4pm. There’s also nothing worse than getting into a meaningful conversation and then being shut down because the meeting room is booked out. So plan: this meeting is important so don’t rush it.
Think career rather than role
Your staff member is investing their time, energy and career coming into work each day. So the least we can do as managers is acknowledge this by asking about their ambitions, career goals, interests and what they enjoy doing at work. As organisational structures get flatter, individuals are in a great position to take on new responsibilities and skills. By discussing this in the PDR you’re not only acknowledging this investment but you can gain insight into how these can tie-in with new projects and plans within the organisation. At the Centre, we have an aspiring copywriter so we’re really taking advantage of her talent: she gets the experience and we get some brilliant copy written by someone who really understands the business.
Listen, really listen
Be patient, be present, seek clarification and actively listen.
If you’re doing the review correctly the meeting will be dominated by the reviewee. You’re there to ask the right questions and get the conversation flowing but your role is to listen and get the feedback from them. In a busy work environment we rarely get any ‘airtime’ so recognise that this is a rare opportunity to focus on your staff member and hear their unique perspective on their role, their team and the organisation. And when so many organisations have staff surveys and focus groups to get that kind of qualitative feedback it’s definitely feedback you want to hear!
Learn more about Personal development review meetings and appraisals, including giving and receiving feedback and managing difficult conversations, with our one-day Personal development review: manager's tool kit training course.
